One thing which I have found very difficult is to take photograps of ice. Somehow I never seem to get the exposure and color balance right - overexposing the bright areas, getting too warm feeling to the colors, or some other problem.
I wonder what is the key to making good photos of ice formations. I do hope the only way to do this is not by extensive post-processing of photos, but by doing it right at the time of the shooting. But what then is the right approach?
Here are two photos from today, which are relatively close to the images I was trying to catch. I did some processing in LightZone to emphasize the ice.
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St. Johns River at Mandarin
3 hours ago
6 comments:
I think you've nailed it with these two.
Thanks, I made a lot of experiments, most of which had problems.
Perhaps ice is a subject where shooting in RAW might really be necessary, as then you don't need to nail the exposure exactly right as with jpegs.
I fear there's not much you can do without post-processing. I guess we see ice not in the way the camera sees it, our mind always exaggerates or dreams something into it that can't be seen.
It's challenging technically as well. If there is no sun, then you have to push contrasts as mad, and if there is, there is no way to capture that sparkling. You can only transform dynamic range into color accents. Hmm ... have not done it since that long winter of 2005 :)
@Andreas: Thanks for the insight, I suspected there is something besides technique going on here...
I just noticed a nice posting on the subject at Graf Nature Photography, Ice Pattern photos.
I see. Well, not exactly my taste, but certainly a possibility. Looks ... geological :)
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